I've been trying to find out about my Paternal Grandfather's first wife
who died in London in the mid 1890's. There is possibly a listing of her
death certificate in the UK's FreeBMD site. I went into it to get the info
to order the certificate and found another listing underneath for the death
of a baby girl aged 0 with the same first, middle and last name. I'm still
waiting for the certificate to arrive to see if his wife died in childbirth,
but I am wondering; if she died giving birth, would it have been the usual
thing for her name to be given to her child, maybe to ward off the angel of
death, if the child was sickly?

Sheila Toffell,
Glen Rock, NJ

Researching: KORSUNSKY >from Stavische and Tarasche, BRIZINOV >from Rovnye,
FELDMAN and LAZARUS >from the Kiev region - all in the Ukraine.
LAKOMSKI >from Skulsk, RACHWALSKY >from Sclesin, SOMPOLINSKI >from Sompolno.
TOFFEL >from Josefow nad Wisla, Opole Lubielskie and Ostrow Mazoweickie - all
in Poland.
HARRIS (>from Eric Street, Burdette Road, Mile End)

(Sheila Toffell toffell@verizon.net) wrote
on 31 Aug 2015 in soc.genealogy.jewish:

I've been trying to find out about my Paternal Grandfather's first wife
who died in London in the mid 1890's. There is possibly a listing of her
death certificate in the UK's FreeBMD site. I went into it to get the
info to order the certificate and found another listing underneath for
the death of a baby girl aged 0 with the same first, middle and last
name. I'm still waiting for the certificate to arrive to see if his wife
died in childbirth, but I am wondering; if she died giving birth, would
it have been the usual thing for her name to be given to her child,
maybe to ward off the angel of death, if the child was sickly?

The way to ward off the angel of death, if the child was feared to die,
was [is?] to give the child an extra, secret[!!] name. This was done
in shul during a [kind of?] ceremony.

The naming after the mother seems to be the opposite.

Evertjan Hannivoort.
The Netherlands

I don't know if it was the "usual thing", but this naming was done for the
daughter of my granduncle when his wife died in childbirth in Galicia in
1890. I imagine you'll be hearing of many similar anecdotes.

Joe Hirschfield
Portage MI USA

HERZFELD, HIRSCHFELD, BUXBAUM, BUCHSBAUM, LINDENBAUM - Skwarzawa, Sielec
Bienkow, Galicia, Yaryczow Nowy - Galicia
MINOWICKI, MINOWITZKI - Vysoko Litovsk, Brest-Litovsk - Belarus

In Bischofsheim (now part of Mainz, Germany) my great-grandmother died in
1875 giving birth to a baby girl who was given the same name as her
mother. In this case the baby survived.

Arline Sachs
Lorton, VA

researching Mainz and Frankfurt areas

Hi all,

As we know, Ashkenazi Jews traditionally name children for dead
relatives, usually recently deceased, particularly prominent
relatives, most often ancestors. If the child's naming took place
after her mother died in childbirth, it would have been routine to
name the daughter for her mother, "evil eye" notwithstanding.

As for Evertjan Hannivoort's comment about adding a name, this is a
different topic: When someone has a very serious illness, a name is
indeed added in a ceremony. The concept is if a person is condemned
to death in some celestial listing by his/her name, a change in name
could "confuse" the Satan/angel of death.

No randomized, controlled, double-blinded trials have (yet?) proven
the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of this method.

David Dubin
Teaneck, NJ